Coutinho Issues Injury Update

Liverpool attacker Philippe Coutinho has issued an injury update ahead of the Reds’ match against Southampton at Anfield on Sunday. The Brazilian was substituted after just 9 minutes of Monday night’s 1-0 win over Watford with a dead leg.

Coutinho left Vicarage Road with his leg heavily strapped, but he was upbeat about his chances of playing on Sunday, telling Liverpool.com, “At the moment, I am feeling very well – the first couple of days were the most painful.

“The injury is much better. It was a hard tackle and what happened was a dead leg. It caused a lot of pain in the area I was hit, but the pain has reduced now. When you have to come out of such an important game like this one, and when you leave that early, it frustrates you.

“But thanks to God it was nothing major – just a strong tackle. It was nothing too serious and the main thing was we won the game and we left the match very pleased and happy because the result was very good for us. The main thing was for us to come home with the three points.”

The victory leaves Liverpool’s top 4 fate in their own hands and Coutinho has urged his team to keep fighting, “These three points are very important for us – they kept us fighting for the top four and left our aim in our own hands.

“We have a target to keep ourselves up there and we have to fight for that because everything is in our hands. These three points were very important, but now we have three games left and we have to win them, although we understand that will be a very difficult task.

“As I’ve said before, every game in the Premier League is very difficult, but if we want to achieve our aims, we have to go through tough games and win them. If we win them, then we will be there in the Champions League next year.”